Specimen
by Nevermorethecorporation
Summary: They have battled every kind of monster- it seems to them, anyway. Some monsters don't live in the dark, they live in perfectly lit houses and go to their sadistically unusual jobs. The group gets caught up in a new kind of evil- one they would rather not admit exists- and Bonnie's the first. Rated T for swearing and violence. I tried to stay in character. Bamon #redcrow
1. Chapter 1

A.N- Sorry it has been so long! Here is one that I started a few months ago, still not really sure where it is going to lead so I guess we'll find out together! This first charter has no Damon yet, but _the story_ will ( I promise). Book!bamon #redcrow and #redcrowbamon. It starts out between two different narrations - don't worry it's not as confusing as it sounds- and they can be seen separated by dashed lines ( - ). **Please comment! ****_Especially_**** if you think one of my characters sound OOC. feel free to message me! Enjoy!**

Bonnies POV.

_Deep breaths. _I reminded myself. I could hardly remember how I had gotten into this situation. _You're not claustrophobic._ I told myself. _You're not._ It was a lie. I was completely claustrophobic. I was scared of tight spaces, the dark, bugs, heights, and rejection. But the worst things were the things that lurked in the dark.

Well, not all of them, I thought, thinking of the few supernatural creatures I knew who weren't bad. There was Stefan and Damon- though his morals were a bit questionable, Elena- who was actually human again, Meredith- who would kill me if she knew that I was clumping her in with the rest of the supernatural, even though she was mostly just a hunter, and then there was Sage. Sage was nice.

Too bad Sage is also a trillion worlds away, literally," I muttered to myself. It suddenly occurred to me that Sage might not actually be as far away as I thought he was, because I had no Idea where I really was.

I pushed at the metal walls around me again. To say I was in a room would be too generous. Everything around me was silver, straight walls, even the floor I was standing on. I could not actually stand, I could only half stand, staying in a crouch. When I reach out my hand on both sides of me, I could not extend my arm fully before they were stopped by the walls. I was in a rectangular, metal tank, and I had no idea how I was supposed to get out.

_Damon!_ I mentally screamed again, as I had been for the last hour. I was getting exhausted, my vision fading in and out. The dull light in the box seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at the same time, no cracks, no seams, just a box that was completely shut. Had I been reasonable, I would have realized that I was lucky I could see a few inches in front of my face. It was my Witch blood that allowed me to see so well. Normal people would not have been able to see anything. _Damon! Stefan! Meredith! Sage! Anyone!_

I pounded on the walls again, a dull thud echoing around me. My sobs were broken now, no more tears available to be shed. I slid down the box and curled up into a ball at the bottom, my back pressed firmly against one of the sides.

"The specimen seems to be calming down," a voice said from the observation deck. It belonged to a man who was tall and thin, but muscular. His long fingers typed at the keyboard in front of him, manipulating the variables of the situation he watched play out in front of him on the computer screen. Below him was a large box, the size of a semi-trailer. Inside that box many mechanisms worked to do their job and a small, red headed girl curled into a ball at the bottom of the third smallest setting.

"Your specimen seemed to be _giving up_," a woman replied. This woman held a resemblance to Bonnie with her red hair but the similarities stopped there. She was tall and confident, standing up straight and she refused to take no for an answer.

"Give it time," the man replied, his eyes never leaving the screens in front of him. Each screen displayed a new angle of the small Witch in her box. "We'll find out exactly what makes this thing _tick_." He pressed one final button and watched as his new approach was played out in front of him.

I sat in a ball for what felt like forever. It was indeed only three minutes; I had counted. Suddenly a soft noise started up, jerking me back to red-alert. It took me a couple of seconds to feel the effects of the cold air that suddenly seeped from the invisible pores in the small metal confinement. It was like ice, invisible ice in the air. My lungs hurt when I took a breath and eyes fluttered shut against the pained feeling of opening them. I shook violently. I wanted to scream but I knew that would require me to breath in more of the horrible air. The wall that I leaned against was no use in storing heat and grew even colder like a plate left in the freezer for too long, biting at my skin.

I stayed crouched down and shuffled forward until I was not touching any of the walls. Another noise started but I did not realize that it was my own whimpering that I heard. The small amount that I was able to see before had disappeared into the fog of every shallow breath I took.

The floor moved below me, rumbling just slightly. The soft noise of the air stopped and was replaced by the slight squeaking sound that echoed around me. _Oh God_, I thought, _rats. _What occupied my mind were not regular rats, some had three eyes and beaks, others did not resemble rats at all. But despite everything I envisioned, I knew I would freeze to death if I could not get warmed up, so I slowly ventured out to see if maybe there had been an opening. _That's what this is,_ I told myself. _I'm someplace really cold and the door just opened and I just need to get out of this box and run to a safe place!_ Even as I thought the words, I knew they were too good to be true.

Too good to be true. Most girls my age thought getting asked out by the hottest guy in school to be 'too good to be true'. Not me, 'too good to be true' for me was an easy escape from death, or the belief that once we beat the bad guys they would be gone forever, or that Damon might actually talk to me one day without some underlying meaning to make Elena jealous or get me to tell him the secrets that we keep from him.

I extended my hand slightly, slowly running my fingers just above the cold floor. I should have hit the wall by now. I let my other hand do the same thing, trailing in the exact opposite direction. Again, I was able to extend my full arm and not hit the cold wall. My arms were so cold that they shook violently back and forth, involuntarily. My fingers started to feel a weird form of numb, almost warm. No matter where I was standing, there was no denying that the walls had moved outward.

I took a moment to thank God that the room had gotten larger, not smaller, and to throw in a small prayer that someone would save me. I shuffled forward some more, following my right hand. Still, I did not hit the wall. It was still cold, but I was out of the zone where the air seeped from the walls and into a new section. I continued for three more feet before I ran into the wall again. Again, It was cold, but had stopped emitting the icy air.

"See," the man gloated, "she's not a total waste of resources." Getting a hold of the Witch had taken up a lot of his time and money. She would have been easy had it not been for how powerful her surrounding group was. Two vampires, a Guardian, a Hunter, and oddly enough- a human. Then there was the other Witch, too old to be of use to them. He had chosen to go after the young Witch first. He wanted to see the best of her abilities. He had wanted to go with the strongest one, but he had to settle for the weakest link for now. And as he had decided, she was _their_ weakness too.

"If you claim so," the woman replied. "This had better be worth it. And I want to see the rest of them in here as well- by the end of next week." He nodded curtly, already debating what the next test should be. This one had been easy, too easy. Any animal with a brain could have sensed to move themselves to the small spot of slight warmth. He had wanted to see her powers in action, to tell what they depended on.

"Perhaps the sun or the light?" he questioned to himself. The woman had already started walking away to supervise some of the other projects. Exposing her to the sun at this point was out of the question, especially when he already knew Witches could draw power from it, thought that deemed it as even more tempting. They could not have her getting too powerful too fast. Instead, he turned a dial and set the lights to turn on fully inside the box. It would give away a lot of the mystery, but he wanted to see how she would deal with that too.

One moment I was pushing against the wall and the next it was glowing. My pupils dilated painfully quick and I pulled away, covering them with my soft curls. Then I squinted against the new light. It was just as much everywhere as the darkness had been. [Outside, the man adjusted the camera settings to see her better.] I could see every detail of the box that I was trapped in, so I thought. At least, I could see enough detail to know That there was no obvious seal, no door. The outer walls had gotten farther away but the ceiling stayed just as low as it had been before. The odd, glowing quality of the walls made them look thin but pushing against them, I knew they were still just as solid.

"Wh- Who's there?" I forced myself to say. Elena would have been better at this. She would have been brave. Meredith would have found a way out by now. Either one of them would be kicking some serious butt by this point, I just knew it. No one answered. The chill in the air was beginning to disperse to a tolerable temperature but I continued to shake for different reasons.

A voice boomed from everywhere at once like the voice of a god, a cruel god with a mouse in a maze. "Do you want to get out?" the man's voice asked.

"What's out there?" I said back, trying to stop my voice from shaking.

"Do you want to leave?" the man rephrased.

"Y-Yes," I said. "Who are you?" I tried again.

The voice did not respond. I waited two minutes. Then five. Then ten. After ten minutes, I called out again, "Hello?" I asked. "Are you still there? Will you help me?"

He was silent for a moment. Then he answered, "Do you want to leave this place?"

"I want to go home." I wrapped myself up tight again for the comfort of it.

"Then I will not help you."

Outside, the man let go of his button and she was cut off from hearing the outside noise. He could not help but think that he had wasted his time after all. If anything, she would make good bait. Then he could sell her for pieces, or slavery, or really anything that there would be the clientele for.

Victoria had left only to check in on how some of the other tests were doing. She would be back in twenty minutes, and she expected results, soon.

The Witch's levels started to rise as her heart began to beat faster and a new wave of adrenaline found its way through her system. "Come on," the man muttered, watching the screen intensely. "Do _something_." After ten more minutes she had not moved. He reached out with annoyance and held down the talk button, but said nothing. She would hear nothing but the slight buzz of static and far off noises in the background for a total of three seconds. Then, he let the button jump back into place again.

She moved slightly when she heard the noise, waiting for his voice, presumably. He made a snap decision, as he often did, and slammed the button down once more, saying in sly voice, thicker than honey, "I will help you…" he trailed off.

"I will help you," the voice said. It sounded different than before, more decided, though on what, I could not tell. My heart did a little leap at his words.

"You will?" I whispered, wondering why he had changed his answer. "Thank you!" I felt my face warm at the thought, despite the conditions of the box around me, like an over excited child with bright eyes and an eager grin.

I hated when I got like that something. It couldn't be helped, though, it was a habit.

After everything, I should have waited for the second shoe to drop before I got excited; I should asked to read the fine print _before_ I invested my heart in his rescue plans.

"If you can make fire," he added.

"F-fire?" I stuttered. I had dabbled in the magics, done a few spells here and there, but almost always with the help of a book or Mrs. Flowers.

"Fire," he repeated. He didn't tell me how, or why, but he left that open for my own imagination. My first idea was that he wanted me to burn to death in this horrible confinement box by the flames of my own fire. Any ideas after that were drown out by the recurring nightmare of visions that I was having. I could picture all too well what my favorite pink top would look like while on fire, how my hair would _really_ look like a tangle of flames, then.

"If I make fire, you'll get me out of here?"

"I may allow you out," he answered.

I shivered but it had nothing to do with the cold. His words were drawn out, contemplating something he had already decided long ago. He was the one controlling all of this. He was not going to help me; he was going to hurt me.


	2. Chapter 2

_AN: Sorry about the dashs being gone, this website doesn't copy over correctly. __**The narratives are for now separated by "OOOOOO". **__Please comment, and feel free to message me._

I thought about his proposition. I didn't even know if I _could _make fire. I had done it before, with candles, but here it was so cold, it felt… confining in a different way than the walls around me were. It was something deeper, more suffocating

A slow hum started up again and I took in a sharp breath, involuntarily. icy air started pouring from the walls again, all of them, even where I had found safety before. I knew this time, without knowing _how _I knew, that the walls would not open for me again.

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Elena Gilbert tapped her fingers impatiently on the window's trim. The sound of it fell into a perfect rhythmic pattern like the rain that fell outside before she stopped abruptly and, trying to keep the annoyance out of her voice, said again, "_Where_ is she?"

Bonnie was an hour and a half late and she had not picked up the last three calls they made.

Stefan placed his hand under her elbow and gently lead her away. The window of the boarding house overlooked the driveway and road. Trees marked the edges of the woods and were turning a slight red color to mark the beginning of fall. It was after senior year but before any of them would start college.

"She said she was going to get here early," Meredith mumbled from her spot on the couch. She was stretched out, laying on her stomach with her ankles crossed and a magazine laid flat on the cushions in front of her face. Propped up on her elbows, she shifted her weight to look at the doorway.

They all knew that Bonnie was the latest to rise and would, of course, be the last one there if she was driving herself to a mourning gathering.

"Maybe she saw the hazy weather and decided to go back to bed." Matt walked in and leaned his shoulder against the cool siding of the open livingroom doorway. Despite his attempts to look alert and awake, Elena could tell he hadn't slept well the night before. Dark crescents shadowed under his eyes and his blond hair was unkept. He crossed his arms over his chest and waited for someone else to say something.

"The little witch is a no-show?" Damon asked from the other room He raised his voice just enough so they would hear him, only Stefan could really tell that he had raised it at all. "Darn."

The only reason damon ever showed up at the boarding house was to inconvenience them, keep tabs on them.

Elena scowled. She could tell he was smirking, mocking them with is sarcasm. But if there was anything else she knew, it was that she would have the last laugh. Damon missed her, too, Elena was almost certain, no matter what face he put on.

They had last seen each other three days ago. Mostly, they met at the boarding house. Over the summer, it had officially because the second home to all of them as they spent countless nights there together.

The sound of crunching gravel wafted into their waiting ears.

"Finally." They were supposed to be going on a tour of Delcrest. They were going to find where all their classes were and check out the shops around town.

Damon could easily tell that the car that drove up wasn't his redbird's. First, it didn't make the right noise. Second, the aura was all wrong. this aura would more closely match a middle aged man, someone who was down to earth and exceedingly boring.

In other words, it was nothing like his eccentric redbird's.

Damon swirled his glass in his hand, watching the blood swish to the sides with a slight interest. Of course it was never anything he would wear - he would stick to his usual black - but the unusual red always had been his second favorite color, even as a boy.

He found no reason to get the door if it wasn't his redbird or Elena on the other side so the persistent knocking came twice before the boy - mutt - went to answer it.

"You're la…. not Bonnie," Matt said as he swung the heavy door open.

Outside stood a man in his thirties holding a brown box in one hand. It was no larger than a sandwich and appeared to be lightweight, judging by how he let it hang loosely in his fingers.

"That's very observant of you, boy," the man replied, holding out a clipboard. "I need you to sign." He pointed to the smudged ink line on the paper. It was wrinkled by the slight water damage.

Matt grabbed the pen from the top and scribbled his name in a messy scrawl above the line. "Thanks, dude." The man passed him the package and checked his watch at the same time. He had a long day ahead of him and his car was full of various boxes.

Matt inspected the label as he let the door swing shut behind him. "Damon, it's … uh... it's for you, actually." He wondered vaguely why Damon was having things delivered here but it made sense that he wouldn't have a mailbox … wherever he usually stayed. Matt didn't actually know. He didn't care to know that much about Damon. The guy was evil, that was enough.

Damon stood and snatched the package out of Mutt's hands with interest. There was no return address. He unfolded the brown wrapping quickly, wondering if it was from Sage or one of his many enemies.

The package included two things. The first was a small, folded paper. Unfolding it, he saw that it included an address and nothing more. The second item was a photo, wallet sized. A majority of it was a plain flat color, almost a green like it had been taken with nightvision on. In the middle was a girl he recognized instantly. She was folded over, staring out into the darkness with a terrified look on her face as if she had seen something there.

_ Bonnie._


End file.
